User personalization of third-party webpage images

1. A system for allowing a user to personalize a webpage, comprising:

a webpage personalizer comprising one or more computing devices, said computing devices being in communication with each other via a computer network whenever there is a plurality of computing devices, and a computer program having a plurality of sub-programs executable by said computing devices, said computing devices being directed by the sub-programs of the computer program to,

receive a request from a client device of the user to insert a user-selected image into an existing third-party webpage managed by an entity other than the user, the third-party webpage being publicly accessible to client devices over a wide-area network at an initial Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the third-party webpage, said image insertion request specifying a particular one of a variety of ways that the user-selected image is to be inserted into the third-party webpage,

determine if the user is authorized to personalize the third-party webpage based on a user identifier, and if the user-selected image is appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, said image appropriateness determination being based on one or more image appropriateness criteria,

whenever the user is determined to be authorized to personalize the third-party webpage and the user-selected image is determined to be appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, personalize the third-party webpage by inserting the user-selected image into the third-party webpage according to the particular way that is specified in said image insertion request to obtain a personalized version of the third-party webpage, the user being identified by the user identifier for accessing the personalized version of the third-party webpage over the wide-area network at the initial Uniform Resource Locator, and

generate a version-specific Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the personalized version of the third-party webpage for sharing access to the personalized version of the third-party webpage.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user-selected image is retrieved from a personalized image repository comprising a collection of images that is contributed to by one or more of the user or one or more other users.

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user-selected image comprises one of:

a photograph of one or more of the user or one or more other users; or

a photograph taken by the user or another user; or

a graphical image generated by the user or another user.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the user-selected image comprises a public image the user or another user downloaded from a website.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the sub-program for receiving a request from the user to insert a user-selected image into an existing third-party webpage comprises sub-programs for:

receiving a request from the user to add an image hotspot to a specific location on the user-selected image, and

overlaying the image hotspot onto the user-selected image in said specific location.

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein said image hotspot addition request specifies one or more of:

a text annotation providing information about the image hotspot; or

a hyperlink to information content that is related to the image hotspot.

7. The system of claim 1 , wherein said computing devices are further directed by the sub-programs of the computer program to:

receive a request from the user to share the personalized version of the third-party webpage on one or more social networking websites that are specified by the user; and

share the version-specific URL with the one or more social networking web sites.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the third-party webpage comprises the homepage of a web search engine.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the image appropriateness criteria comprise the user-selected image being uncopyrighted.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein the sub-program for determining if the user is authorized to personalize the third-party webpage, and if the user-selected image is appropriate for use on the third-party webpage comprises a sub-program for analyzing the user-selected image to determine if it comprises one or more of:

a notice of copyright; or

information indicating the user-selected image cannot be used without the consent of its owner.

11. The system of claim 9 , wherein the user-selected image comprises metadata, and the sub-program for determining if the user is authorized to personalize the third-party webpage, and if the user-selected image is appropriate for use on the third-party webpage comprises a sub-program for analyzing said metadata to determine if it comprises one or more of:

a notice of copyright; or

information indicating the user-selected image cannot be used without the consent of its owner.

12. The system of claim 1 , wherein the image appropriateness criteria comprise the user-selected image being sanctioned as being compatible with a branding associated with the third-party webpage.

13. The system of claim 1 , wherein the image appropriateness criteria comprise the user-selected image having no inappropriate content.

14. The system of claim 1 , wherein the image appropriateness criteria comprise the user-selected image not appearing in a list of images that are not to be used on the third-party webpage.

15. The system of claim 1 , wherein said image insertion request specifies that a background image of the third-party webpage be changed from a default image to the user-selected image.

16. The system of claim 1 , wherein said image insertion request specifies that the user-selected image be inset into a specific location on the third-party webpage.

17. A computer-implemented process for allowing a user to personalize a webpage, the process comprising the actions of:

using one or more computing devices to perform the following process actions, the computing devices being in communication with each other via a computer network whenever a plurality of computing devices are used:

receiving a request from a client device of the user to insert a user-selected image into an existing third-party webpage managed by an entity other than the user, the third-party webpage being publicly accessible to client devices over a wide-area network at an initial Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the third-party webpage, said image insertion request specifying a particular one of a variety of ways that the user-selected image is to be inserted into the third-party webpage;

determining if the user is authorized to personalize the third-party webpage based on a user identifier, and if the user-selected image is appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, said image appropriateness determination being based on one or more image appropriateness criteria;

whenever the user is determined to be authorized to personalize the third-party webpage and the user-selected image is determined to be appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, personalizing the third-party webpage by inserting the user-selected image into the third-party webpage according to the particular way that is specified in said image insertion request to obtain a personalized version of the third-party webpage, the user being identified by the user identifier for accessing the personalized version of the third-party webpage over the wide-area network at the initial Uniform Resource Locator; and

generating a version-specific Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the personalized version of the third-party webpage for sharing access to the personalized version of the third-party webpage.

18. The process of claim 17 , further comprising the actions of:

using the computing devices to perform the following process actions:

receiving a request from the user to share the personalized version of the third-party webpage on one or more social networking websites that are specified by the user; and

sharing the version-specific URL with the social networking websites.

19. The process of claim 17 , wherein the image appropriateness criteria comprise one or more of:

the user-selected image being uncopyrighted; or

the user-selected image being sanctioned as being compatible with a branding associated with the third-party webpage; or

the user-selected image having no inappropriate content; or

the user-selected image not appearing in a list of images that are not to be used on the third-party webpage.

20. A computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable instructions stored thereon that, responsive to execution by a computing device, cause the computing device to allow a user to personalize a webpage, said personalization comprising:

receiving a request from a client device of the user to insert a user-selected image into an existing third-party webpage managed by an entity other than the user, the third-party webpage being publicly accessible to client devices over a wide-area network at an initial Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the third-party webpage, said image insertion request specifying a particular one of a variety of ways that the user-selected image is to be inserted into the third-party webpage;

determining if the user is authorized to personalize the third-party webpage based on a user identifier, and if the user-selected image is appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, said image appropriateness determination being based on one or more image appropriateness criteria;

whenever the user is determined to be authorized to personalize the third-party webpage and the user-selected image is determined to be appropriate for use on the third-party webpage, personalizing the third-party webpage by inserting the user-selected image into the third-party webpage according to the particular way that is specified in said image insertion request to obtain a personalized version of the third-party webpage, the user being identified by the user identifier for accessing the personalized version of the third-party webpage over the wide-area network at the initial Uniform Resource Locator; and

generate a version-specific Uniform Resource Locator that uniquely identifies the personalized version of the third-party webpage for sharing access to the personalized version of the third-party webpage.